This essay
was first broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio,
March 11, 1994

(Webmaster's note: Prairie
Island is a Mdewakanton Dakota Indian Reservation on the banks of the
Mississippi River near Red Wing, Minnesota)

A year and a half ago I spent
a couple of hot August days camped out at Prairie Island. Actually, the
shelter provided by the trailer home in Joe Campbell's back yard might
not exactly qualify as camping, but it certainly was at the heart of Prairie
Island.

If I had lobbed a baseball
in one direction it would have landed on the roof of the bustling Treasure
Island Casino. A well-hit line-drive the other way might have almost cleared
the fence of the NSP [Northern States Power Co.] nuclear power plant,
whose two brown reactors stood like fat grain silos at the far end of
an open field. And hiding just out of sight past the dry grass and the
heavy green trees lay the backwater channels of the Mississippi, the greatest
river in the land.

The constellation of these
three landmarks captured my imagination when I first heard about Prairie
Island. Their co-existence in such a small corner of the universe almost
seemed to pose a riddle--guess what these three things have in common:
a nuclear power plant, an Indian reservation casino and the greatest river
in North America. The only answer I could think of was a non-answer: Prairie
Island.

Then I heard about another
Prairie Island institution--a Friday night sweat lodge ceremony that welcomed
visitors--and that made a visit to this unlikely community irresistible.
A group of eight high school students were camping with me at Joe Campbell's
place. Joe kindly offered us his trailer when I told him over the phone
that we were interested in learning about life at Prairie Island. I called
Joe because he was the only person living at Prairie Island whom I'd met.
He also happened to be the reservation's most active anti-nuclear organizer.
I told Joe we wanted to find out how people on the reservation felt about
NSP's plans to store radioactive waste in steel casks on the banks of
the Mississippi in their back yard. I told him I had arranged a visit
to the power plant with the folks at NSP. I also told him we were interested
in joining the Friday night sweat.

Joe said he didn't know much
about the sweat lodge, but he'd be happy to show us around. He was waiting
for us when we arrived at his place just before dark. With his graying
sideburns and receding hairline he looked about fifty. He had a gentle
face and soft hands. He wore blue jeans and a blue denim western-style
shirt rolled up to the elbows. On his feet were a pair of unlaced work
boots.

We
followed a meandering path behind Joe's house through a maze of tools,
lumber, a few pieces of heavy equipment, a motorcycle, a snowmobile, a
hot tub, and we settled into the trailer. Joe began telling tales. He
described growing up at Prairie Island in the decades before nuclear power
and reservation casinos--back when the quiet was so pervasive that on
hot summer nights he could tell which of his neighbors were driving the
roads by the distinctive sounds of their cars. He told stories about fishing
and hunting and about some of Prairie Island's native plants. He left
the impression that his sensitivities were as highly developed for his
animal and vegetable neighbors as they were for his human ones.

The next day, after a formal
lecture on the basic physics of nuclear power by an NSP engineer, Joe
led us on a tour of the reservation. We drove through publicly accessible
portions of NSP's property and saw the now-wooded ground where, Joe said,
NSP planned to build its storage casks.

As Joe stood on the banks of
the Mississippi, the waves glistening under a hazy sun, he shared his
concerns about NSP's plans. He feared that nuclear waste stored in outdoor
casks would significantly raise cancer risks for him and his neighbors
and would damage the Prairie Island environment. Before we left he gave
us a news clipping on a Minnesota Health Department study that determined
radioactive gasses at the power plant created cancer risks that were six
times greater for the Prairie Island Dakota than for the rest of the state's
population.

We visited the graveyard
of the church where members of Joe's family are buried. We also
hiked along a rise near several burial mounds that overlooked the
Mississippi. The presence of the mounds, according to archaeological
evidence, indicates that Prairie Island was a home for Native Americans
about the time of the birth of Christ.

That evening we said
our farewells to Joe and followed his directions to the site of
the sweat lodge. Joe had prepared us with packages of cigarettes
to present as offerings of thanks and he had coached us to bring
food to share when the sweat was over.

It was a long evening, rich
in ceremony that was largely foreign to me. Our group was welcomed and
divided by gender so that we could be tutored by someone of our own sex
regarding what to expect and what was expected of us in this ceremony
of purification. People continued to arrive--Indians and non-Indians,
from the reservation and from the Twin Cities. The atmosphere was friendly
and quietly reflective. A pot luck dinner grew with each arrival as dishes
were spread out on warming plates in a nearby dome-shaped building to
be eaten when the sweat was over.

Just before dusk a large fire
was set on the meticulously cleaned ground in front of the sweat lodge--a
squat dome-shaped structure supported by branches and covered with cloth.
There was considerable ritual, much of it accompanied by a Dakota refrain
that was translated to us as meaning, "All of my Relations."

At last, well past dark, as
the casino traffic continued in a steady stream on the nearby highway,
we entered the pitch dark sweat lodge. There were so many of us that we
pressed nearly on top of each other to fit everyone in. Once we were in
place, rocks glowing like embers from the heat of the fire outside were
placed one by one in a circle in the middle of the lodge.

People offered up heartfelt
prayers in the darkness. They prayed for those who were sick and in trouble
and for themselves. Every prayer was answered by the refrain, "All my
relations." The thick and heavy heat washed over me in waves. My hunched
back and my cramped legs ached, but I felt calm inside--as if my own discomfort
was supported somehow by those around me.

Then suddenly, with no warning,
a huge mechanical roar filled our tiny space and the ground shook beneath
us. For a moment I was completely disoriented--not sure what this earth-shaking,
enraged presence was or from where it had come. Then, as suddenly, I knew.
It was a train racing past the sweat lodge on tracks no more than twenty
yards away. The sensation jolted me into an acute awareness of where I
was.

I was at one end of the universe,
in a small, dark enclosure, being cleansed by the heat of the sun. About
a mile away, at the other end of the universe, in a similarly dome-like
structure, the heat from another sun was burning hotter still.